Why every DUI suspect is considered as “Average”? »

December 17, 2009

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One of the greatest sources of error in breath-alcohol testing is the consistently recurring fallacy that the individual tested is perfectly average in certain critical physiological traits.

Explaining this in other way, there are a number of assumptions on the validity of which an accurate blood-alcohol reading is obtained and its accuracy is completely dependent on the validity of those assumptions.

Unluckily, these assumptions are usually incorrect for the person being tested: It rarely happens that the person tested is “average” in even one of these critical characteristics.

‘Average’ Factor in Breath Testing Machine

For instance, it is assumed that the ratio between alcohol in the exhaled breath and alcohol in the blood is 1 to 2100. All breath testing devices depend on this assumption. The fact is that, the machine is designed such that it produce a reading based on that assumption; the accuracy of the reading is directly connected to the accuracy of the presumption.

Variation in Actual Ratio from person to person

Yet, there is a variation in the actual ratio in any given individual.

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